Abstract: An enhanced navigation system allowing navigation route and destination planning according to user-specified criteria for the emotion state of persons along the route, at the destination, or both. The enhancement is accomplished by receiving a set of human emotion metrics corresponding to one or more parts of a navigation plan; determining if the human emotion metrics meet one or more user-specified criteria; responsive to not meeting the criteria, determining an alternate navigation plan until the user-specified criteria are met; and responsive to the criteria being met, presenting the navigation plan to the user for laying into a navigation system, and optionally during execution of the navigation plan updating the received human emotion metrics; repeating the determination against the user-specified criteria; and repeating the steps of determining an alternate navigation plan and presentation to a user responsive to the updated human emotion metrics not meeting the user-specified criteria.

Abstract: A system and method for handling unwanted physical mail pieces having a sorter and imager which intercepts one or more pieces of physical mail, which produces an electronic image of a front panel of each piece of mail, and which physically retains pieces of mail in temporary physical storage, and which cooperates with an optical recognizer to determine an intended recipient for each retained piece of mail, further cooperating with a server that notifies the intended recipients and receives a choice for disposition of the mail, and including a destruction which destroys said pieces of mail rejected by the intended recipient.

Abstract: Gradually automation of a workflow by a configuration change management system is provided by a first workflow template having a relatively low level of automation and complexity in which at least a plurality of tasks require manual input, manual response, or manual approval, operating the first workflow by a workflow automation system engine, monitoring a measurement of the maturity level of the process during the operation the first workflow, and responsive to detecting the maturity level meeting pre-determined benchmark, automatically selecting, engaging, and operating a second workflow template which increases automation by automating one or more subprocesses, adding one or more subprocesses, or eliminating one or more subprocesses.

Abstract: An automatic Financial Risk Cover configuration which receives returns behaviors connecting statistical behavior of each potential allocation of a submanager to a resultant statistical behavior of a Financial Risk Cover associated with a client portfolio, creates a total set of Financial Risk Cover configurations using genetic optimization processes to produce unpredictable variations of configurations, simulates and models each configuration in the total set against a set of potential or expected transient market events representative of a plurality of combinations of transient events, removes from the total set each configuration which fails to meet performance objectives during the modelling from the total set of configurations; and outputs each remaining configuration in the total set, wherein each configuration represents a plurality of investment instruments, each investment instrument being associated with an initial cash position.

Abstract: An enhanced personal firewall system having an inter-firewall connection listener which binds to a specified communications port and listens for inbound and/or outbound connection requests; and an inter-firewall controller which establishes a trusted communications through a local firewall and a remote firewall by exchanging public keys, a signed trusted computer firewall request, and using the keys to determine if a local key storage indicates previous authorization to trusted communications. If not, then a user of the targeted resource is notified and prompted to authorize the access. If so, then the firewall rules protecting the targeted resource are modified, even if temporarily, to allow the requesting firewall to have trusted access.

Abstract: Near clones for a set of targeted computing systems are provided by determining a highest common denominator set of components among the computing systems, producing a pseudo-clone configuration definition, and realizing one or more pseudo-clone computing systems as partially configured backups for the targeted computing systems. Upon a planned failover, actual failure, or quarantine action on a targeted computing system, a difference configuration is determined to complete the provisioning of the pseudo-clone system to serve as a replacement system for the failed or quarantined system. Failure predictions can be used to implement the pseudo-clone just prior to an expected first failure of any of the targeted systems. The system can also interface to an on-demand provisioning management system to effect automated workflows to realize pseudo-clones and replacement systems automatically, as needed.

Abstract: A system and method for controlling a peer-to-peer, unmoderated conference call, which allows a non-talking conferee to send an in-band interrupt request signal which is detected by the conference bridge, which automatically determines which conferee is currently talking, and continuously sends an alert signal to the talking conferee, but prevents transmission of alert signal and interrupt request signal to all other, non-speaking conferees. When the talking conferee quits talking, or acknowledges the interrupt request, or a timeout occurs, alert signal is discontinued, and the request conferee (or another conferee) may speak. Optionally, after a timeout occurs, the voice of the currently speaking conferee is removed from the conference summation, effectively muting the non-yielding conferee.

Abstract: Near clones for a set of targeted computing systems are provided by determining a highest common denominator set of components among the computing systems, producing a pseudo-clone configuration definition, and realizing one or more pseudo-clone computing systems as partially configured backups for the targeted computing systems. Upon a planned failover, actual failure, or quarantine action on a targeted computing system, a difference configuration is determined to complete the provisioning of the pseudo-clone system to serve as a replacement system for the failed or quarantined system. Failure predictions can be used to implement the pseudo-clone just prior to an expected first failure of any of the targeted systems. The system can also interface to an on-demand provisioning management system to effect automated workflows to realize pseudo-clones and replacement systems automatically, as needed.

Abstract: A system, a method, computer-readable medium for conveying software, or business methods for gradually automating a workflow in a configuration change management system by providing a first workflow template having a relatively low level of automation and complexity in which at least a plurality of tasks require manual input, manual response, or manual approval, operating the first workflow by a workflow automation system engine, monitoring a measurement of the maturity level of the process during the operation the first workflow, and responsive to detecting the maturity level meeting pre-determined benchmark, automatically selecting, engaging, and operating a second workflow template which increases automation by automating one or more subprocesses, adding one or more subprocesses, or eliminating one or more subprocesses.

Abstract: A system for allocating resources which are anticipated to be available in an on-demand computing at some time in the future, wherein a producer trending agent (PTA) lists resources according to a trend prediction of resource availability in the past, a consumer trending agent (CTA) places bids for listed resources according to previous resource usage trends, and an arbitration system (REAS) matches the bids with the listings to determine if a match exists. If so, a binding contract for consumption of the matched listed resources is established. The PTA also produce tier-based dynamic incentive (TDI) schema which divides potential bidders into tiers, and offers additional resource incentives according to the tiers. Both PTA and CTA dynamically update their available/usage trends, listings and bids, over time.

Abstract: An automatic Financial Risk Cover configuration which receives returns behaviors connecting statistical behavior of each potential allocation of a submanager to a resultant statistical behavior of a Financial Risk Cover associated with a client portfolio, creates a total set of Financial Risk Cover configurations using genetic optimization processes to produce unpredictable variations of configurations, simulates and models each configuration in the total set against a set of potential or expected transient market events representative of a plurality of combinations of transient events, removes from the total set each configuration which fails to meet performance objectives during the modelling from said total set of configurations; and outputs each remaining configuration in the total set, wherein each configuration represents a plurality of investment instruments, each investment instrument being associated with an initial cash position.

Abstract: Event reports generated from multiple event sources within an event management system such as Tivoli (TM) Event Console are handled by an Event Bus, which links multiple problem resolution servers together and assigns an ownership to each event report. The Event Bus parses each incoming event for adding or altering a slot value. Based on the slot value, the event is forwarded to the configured event servers. In addition, the ability to dynamically change ownership to maintain an error-free systematic transmission flow is provided.

Abstract: Systems and methods for decomposing and decaying data over time by decomposing a type of data item into constituent units of the data item, establishing relationship factors between data items to other data items and between constituent units, creating a shelf-life criterion for the constituent units priority dimensions, calculating or updating a decomposability index for each constituent unit as a function of the priority dimensions while also applying a relationship factor and optionally incrementing for another dimension, and then decaying over time the data items by deleting all constituent units which have decomposability indices exceeding a configured threshold.

Abstract: A system and related methods for dynamically re-configuring a radio frequency identification tag reader, engaging software business processes, or combinations of both, using a radio-frequency-readable configuration tag which physically associated with one or more RFID-tagged articles in a physical handling flow. The configuration tag reader is positioned prior to a radio frequency identification tag reader in said material handling flow, which allows the configuration reader to read the contents of the configuration tags before the articles reach the identification tag reader.

Abstract: Software components “self-scrub” to improve software reliability, serviceability and availability (RAS). Each component designates a routine to perform a component level consistency check on major data structures and to verify the state of component. This is performed as an on-going task during the life of the component. The component registers an entry point with the system to receive notification of scrubbing parameter changes. The entry point is also called with the request to perform component-scrubbing operations. The entry point functions are responsible for executing within limitations on central processing unit (CPU) usage and memory footprint when performing scrubbing operations.

Abstract: A system and related methods for dynamically re-configuring a radio frequency identification tag reader, engaging software business processes, or combinations of both, using a radio-frequency-readable configuration tag which physically associated with one or more RFID-tagged articles in a physical handling flow. The configuration tag reader is positioned prior to a radio frequency identification tag reader in said material handling flow, which allows the configuration reader to read the contents of the configuration tags before the articles reach the identification tag reader. Based on the contents of the read configuration tags, one or more document generators are engaged, and optionally one or more business processes are initiated, and optionally one or more reader system hardware configuration changes are implemented.

Abstract: Associativity of a multi-core processor cache memory to a logical partition is managed and controlled by receiving a plurality of unique logical processing partition identifiers into registration of a multi-core processor, each identifier being associated with a logical processing partition on one or more cores of the multi-core processor; responsive to a shared cache memory miss, identifying a position in a cache directory for data associated with the address, the shared cache memory being multi-way set associative; associating a new cache line entry with the data and one of the registered unique logical processing partition identifiers; modifying the cache directory to reflect the association; and caching the data at the new cache line entry, wherein said shared cache memory is effectively shared on a line-by-line basis among said plurality of logical processing partitions of said multi-core processor.

Abstract: A system and related methods for dynamically re-configuring a radio frequency identification tag reader, engaging software business processes, or combinations of both, using a radio-frequency-readable configuration tag which physically associated with one or more RFID-tagged articles in a physical handling flow. The configuration tag reader is positioned prior to a radio frequency identification tag reader in said material handling flow, which allows the configuration reader to read the contents of the configuration tags before the articles reach the identification tag reader. Based on the contents of the read configuration tags, one or more selected business processes are initiated to customize the handling process of the tagged items.

Abstract: An information repository and management system for data regarding a client base which integrates a plurality of information types including database records, word processor files, e-mail, other hyperlinked documents, web pages and web sites. Implemented as a database application on a web-enabled database server, sales and marketing team members may access the system through an intranet or remotely through an Internet. Portions of the database may be extracted and placed on a portable computing device for traveling purposes. The extracted database can be later synchronized with the central database upon return of a sales and marketing team member from a meeting or business trip. Links and expandable subforms are provided to web sites for stock quoting and client home pages, allowing sales team members to quickly gather information regarding a company's latest news announcements, stock performance, and financial status.

Abstract: A method for viewing and controlling data intermediately between source and destination by receiving from a graphical user interface a user designation of a plurality of sets of copy command destination positions within contents of a computer file, wherein each destination point is allowed to be included in more than one set of destination points; displaying to the user information elements contained in an operating system clipboard transfer buffer; receiving a user selection of information elements in the clipboard transfer buffer; receiving a user definition of a subset of the previously-designated copy command destination positions; and automatically copying the selected information elements to positions in the computer file according to the user defined subset of copy command destination positions.